Acts 5:33

33. When The firm repetition by the apostles of their conscientious disobedience to the Sanhedrin, and of their explicit charge against them of Messiah-murder and of the exaltation of Jesus to God’s right hand, was the greatest of possible offences. They were forbidden to proclaim the name of Jesus, and they promptly proclaimed it, first in the temple and then in the Sanhedrin.

Cut to the heart The phrase to the heart, as the italics indicate, is superfluously added by the translators. The phrase they were cut signifies literally in the Greek they were sawn through, and it describes by a strong figure the pang of indignant passion cutting through the entire person of a perfectly angry man.

Took counsel Not that they entered into consultation audibly, but that they framed the purpose unanimously in their heart.

To slay them As a court they had not the power of capital punishment, so that they were now simply inspired with a mad impulse of slaughter of the whole twelve by illegal violence, such as was perpetrated seen after upon the proto-martyr Stephen. But in the midst of their paroxysm a man of no ordinary presence stands forth, and, with words of singular calmness, brings them to a semblance of reason.